50 years ago, the "star" life of giant pandas in the United States

Source: Global Times

【Global Times Comprehensive Report】This year coincides with the 50th anniversary of the arrival of giant pandas in the United States, and China and the United States have successively carried out commemorative activities. In the 1970s, "ping-pong diplomacy" and Nixon's visit to China broke the "solid ice" of Sino-US relations for many years. As messengers of peace, two giant pandas, xingxing and lingling, one male and one female, came to the United States in April 1972 with the friendly wishes of the Chinese people. The American people attach great importance to and love the giant panda messengers beyond the ordinary, and Xingxing and Lingling enjoy the treatment of superstars, which also makes their life in the United States full of interesting anecdotes.

Set off the "giant panda mania"

In February 1972, after the then US President Nixon and his wife visited China, they brought back the good news that Chinese giant pandas were coming to the United States, and the whole United States began to look forward to it. In particular, zoos in major cities in the United States, including the Bronx Zoo in New York, have expressed hope that giant pandas can settle in their homes. Various media are also full of curiosity about everything about Chinese giant pandas, and the dolls of giant panda images have quickly become children's favorites, and many shopping malls have sold out of stock. At that time, the American media created a new word - "giant panda mania" to describe the expectations of giant pandas in the United States.

Celebrities often have secrets, and giant pandas are no exception. President Nixon was also a super "fan" of Xingxing and Lingling, and he personally exposed their secrets to the media. This incident was accidentally discovered 30 years later, when the "Watergate" related files were revealed. In order to completely uncover the truth of "Watergate", the researchers listened carefully to all the telephone recordings of Nixon at that time. They were surprised to find that the White House had just decided to install the giant panda's new home at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and on March 13, President Nixon personally called Crosby Noyce, editor-in-chief of the overseas edition of the Washington Star, to tell him that the giant pandas would be located at the National Zoo. For the first time, Nixon revealed that there are two giant pandas coming to the United States, one male and one female. On the phone, Nixon also broke the news to Crosby Noyce that because the two giant pandas are young and do not know how to mate, the Chinese side should stay with the pandas for a period of time to let them "observe and learn" the mating process of other giant pandas.

The Washington Star soon published the high-profile scoop, but they did not disclose the source of the news. However, neither Nixon nor Crosby Noyce may have expected that the Watergate outbreak in June of the same year would still be carefully studied 30 years later. And after the news was exposed, it still attracted attention, and many media in the United States reported on the topic of "the archives are revealed, nixon is interested in the life of the giant panda couple".

What if you don't like to eat American bamboo

Xingxing and Lingling arrived in Washington, D.C., on April 17. It reportedly rained that day, but more than 8,000 people still braved the rain to greet them at the zoo. They made their debut at the National Zoo on April 20, also known as Giant Panda Day, and in 1972 it was dubbed the "Year of the Giant Panda" by Americans. More than 1 million people reportedly came to the zoo to watch the giant pandas in the first month. Americans were completely overwhelmed by the cute images of Xingxing and Lingling, but the zoo was worried about their dietary problems. Americans know that pandas from China love to eat bamboo, but they find that the pandas are not interested in most of the bamboo that is native to the United States. In order to take good care of the picky giant pandas, the National Zoo of the United States has set up a special department responsible for the nutritional diet of the giant pandas, hiring people to find bamboo for Xingxing and Lingling everywhere. Bamboo must be fresh, must not have dead branches and leaves, cannot have pesticides or other chemical residues, and must not carry excrement from birds or other animals, which may be toxic to giant pandas. When cutting bamboo, you can't use automated tools such as gasoline-powered saws, which were commonly used at the time, because gasoline residues can be harmful to giant pandas. Where bamboo grows is also exquisite, it cannot be at the edge of polluted water, nor can it be next to a highway with car exhaust...

The zoo sent a distress message to the community, asking the public to provide sources of fresh bamboo. Ms. Nancy Tufts of Maryland solved their pressing needs. Ms. Nancy Tufts, who lived in Asia with her parents in the early part of the last century, visited and loved China very much. Nancy's father returned to the United States after retirement and built a house in Maryland filled with items they had collected from the East. On nearly a hundred acres of land around the house, Nancy's mother planted bamboo because it reminded her of China, and the plant grew rapidly without the need for special care. The zoo rushed over to see that these bamboos happened to be the varieties that giant pandas liked to eat. Therefore, the zoo went to Nancy's bamboo garden every week to cut a large number of bamboo leaves and branches for Xingxing and Lingling to enjoy. Out of special affection for China and love for giant pandas, the Nancy family has never charged a zoo fee, free food for Chinese "guests".

Later, as other giant pandas came to the United States, some American zoos, including the National Zoo, also began to set up bamboo gardens to try to grow bamboo for the giant pandas to eat, because the cost of buying or hiring people to search for bamboo was too high. According to reports, due to the inability to bear the high cost of raising giant pandas, Zoo Atlanta has also launched a social survey to ask whether the people can send a pair of giant pandas raised in the park back to China. As a result, the local people firmly opposed it, and finally the park had to cancel the plan.

Not just diplomacy

Although there was a special "study" before going to the United States, and giant pandas can generally breed after the age of 5, it took 10 years of trial and error for Xingxing and Lingling to successfully mate for the first time in 1983. The Americans also artificially inseminated Lingling using semen from another male panda from London. On July 21, 1983, Lingling gave birth to a male cub, but unfortunately the cub survived for only 3 hours before dying. Later, Xingxing and Lingling gave birth to 4 more cubs. In 1984, a cub was stillborn when it was born. In 1987, Lingling gave birth to twins, but one died quickly due to lack of oxygen, and the other died of infection four days later. Their last cub was born in 1989 and died of pneumonia 23 hours after birth. During this period, every pregnancy and childbirth of the giant panda couple attracted widespread attention from the American people and the media.

Lingling died of heart failure in 1992 at the age of 23, breaking the record for the longest survival time since a giant panda left China. In 1999, at the age of 28, Xingxing also died. Compared with the average life expectancy of the giant panda at 25 years old, Xingxing was already considered to be an advanced age at that time, it suffered from a variety of diseases, including kidney disease, and in order to alleviate Xingxing's pain, the zoo euthanized it.

A series of experiments conducted by American researchers through Xingxing and Lingling have been fruitful. In 2005, other pandas finally spawned cubs that survived at the National Zoo. According to the agreement between China and the United States, cubs that were later born and raised in the United States will return to live in China's giant panda base when they reach adulthood. The giant panda research conducted by American researchers has also provided a lot of useful help to Chinese researchers. It can be said that the trip of Xingxing and Lingling to the United States 50 years ago not only opened up a new situation in the diplomacy between China and the United States, but also made great contributions to the scientific research of giant pandas. (Zhang Jiwen, Wang Ziyan)